


A Warlord's Seer

by sku7314977



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 4th Century, Ancient History, Ancient Rome, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Celtic Roman War, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Gladiator hannibal, Gladiators, Half-Human Half-fish people, Happy Ending, Historical AU, History and Magic, I might make it faster, M/M, Mentions of Racism, Mentions of Sexism, Mentions of religion, Religious Conflict, Seer Will, Sirens, Slow Burn, Warlord Hannibal, Will sucks at horse riding, ancient Ireland, fae, mermaid, merman, more tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4154763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sku7314977/pseuds/sku7314977
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal, once a Celtic slave of Rome, has at last found his way home, returning to his native island with one purpose - to take it back from Rome.</p><p>Gathering the scattered tribes he unites the people as one against their common enemy and marches across the island to reclaim the land one village at a time, starting a war and freeing the people. </p><p>He hadn't expected to find a Seer in his journey - but now that he has him he won't be letting him go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Visions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diedofennui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diedofennui/gifts).



> Hello my lovelies~<3
> 
> I've had this floating around in my odd little brain for a long, long time and finally go this little gem on paper with the help of diedofennui (thank you so much darling).
> 
> For anyone willing to give this fic a chance, thank you~<3
> 
> This story is placed in 4th century Ireland, known by the local people in that time as 'Scotia'. This fic is a blend if researched history, magic, a fictional war and fantasy. So...you know what you're walking into.
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> Beta read by Diedofennui. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR EDITING AND TIME AND YOU DID SUCH AN AMAZING JOB!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“You can change your fate.”

 

Will’s father had said as much, once, so long ago he could barely remember.  Words curled around the shadow of memory like ebbing smoke swirled in a breath on the wind.  He didn’t know how true they were. As far as he was concerned, they had been woven from white lies and wishful thinking, but they were some of the only sober words he could remember being spoken to him by his father.

 

These words Will remembered every time his vision turned to black and words of telling were forced from his mouth, visions he had never yet managed to avoid.

 

“Get off of me!” Will fought the hands that grabbed him, dirty fingers pulling at his clothes, scratching his skin as they tore at him. “Let go!” His voice was lost in the chanting screams of those around him, a dozen men working to render him helpless on the ground.

 

He had meant to take a peaceful trip to the market, to replenish his house’s dwindling rations.  It couldn’t have gone more wrong.

 

Will dropped his basket full of fish in favor of reaching for his filleting knife, the heavy copper blade strapped to his hip.  His fingers barely skimmed the leather-bound hilt before a calloused hand caught him by the wrist, squeezing tight enough to feel bone ache and muscles scream.  His arms were twisted behind his back in a punishing grip, the blacksmith’s son, and his knees forced to the ground.

 

“I came to barter,” he hissed when fingers found his hair, soft curls clenched in a fist that gripped them at the roots – dragging the fishermen’s son away from the market stalls he had sought and toward the village square.  “I haven’t done anything!”  He kicked, fighting his captors even as they drug him through the dirt, desperate to free himself of the mob that had descended upon him.

 

It was to no avail.

 

Thrown to the foot-pounded ground, Will pushed himself to hands and knees. The point of a staff pierced the earth before his face, startling him back, and stormy eyes turned skyward in fear, wide and bright. They found the face of the village elder, whose gaze contained anger and fear both as he made his pronouncement: “William Graham, son of Ian Graham you have been found guilty of consorting with the devil and cursing this village.”

 

“What?” Will stumbled to his feet, daring a step back before remembering the crowd that surrounded him. He had nowhere to go. He looked to the mob instead, searching the sea of faces for an ally.  He found only fear and disgust.

 

Frightened, realizing the depths of the villager’s hate, Will turned back to the elder.  The man stood with pride despite the staff supporting his crippled form, his eyes demanding respect even as his body shook with age.  With a face as emotionless as a stone, the elder stood before the people and sentenced Will to his end.

 

Behind the old man, a new horror came into Will’s focus, his punishment for crimes he had not committed. Fear hit him like a wave.

 

A rough stake sat heavy in a mound of wood and straw, standing tall above the mob. Thick ropes were held in preparation by the hard-eyed men of the village, ready to bind and secure their charge. Will had always feared exile, avoided the village for the stones thrown in his wake, for the violent hatred spewed by the people. But this was different – this was an execution.

 

“No.” He fought to swallow back his terror. “I’m not guilty of anything. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

 

“You deny summoning demons from your dark master to bring about the famine and the drought?” The old man, merciless, narrowed his eyes in contempt.

 

“I don’t consort with any demons, I didn’t summon anything. The drought and famine affect me too! I’m a victim of the visions sent to me, I can’t control them.” He turned, searching the dirty faces of the crowd for a friend, a believer amongst them. 

 

A stone struck his face and he cried out, blood curling down his brow with the strike. “Lies!” a woman cried in a shrill voice, throwing another stone that took Will in the shoulder.  “He’s a concubine for the devil!” she spat. “He trades his body and soul to make us suffer.”  People were agreeing, nods and murmurs among the crowd.  “He brings famine and disease!  Kill him!  Let him burn!” A hundred voices joined, urging, demanding his roasting flesh.

 

“No! I-” he stopped, eyes growing wide, the gentle curl of fingers shifting through his mind, the swing of a pendulum in his vision. It was happening.  The town began to shift around him, swimming like ripples as it transformed in his sight.

 

“No, no not now, not here-” His begging stopped as words began to bubble from his throat against his will, a calm he didn’t feel taking over to speak through him.  “There will be one survivor.”

 

Hands were upon him at once, though Will had no means to fend them off anymore. His body was still as the vision of death took him, the people were gone, replaced by a village flooded with fire and blood.

 

“He summons his master to save him, burn him! Stop the curse before it’s cast! Burn him!” He could hear the people crying; feel them dragging his body onto the pile of wood, forcing his hands behind the thick pillar, binding him to the stake.  He was powerless to stop them.

 

“Death marches to take the village.  An army led to leave nothing in its wake but fire and blood-” He couldn’t stop, his voice forced to spill words, his eyes blanketed with visions of carnage, his body gone still.  Everyone was going to die. They would burn him, and then everyone would die.

 

“Stop him before he can finish the curse!” another villager yelled. Will could still hear them, though he could see nothing beyond the flames in his vision that ate the town, accompanied by a giant beast of black marble flesh and towering horns.  He felt fingers gripping his hair, registered the impact of his skull against the stake, and still the words poured on.

 

“Light him, burn him now!”

 

Around the square, the sound of more distant screaming began to fill the air, pulling the mob from their task of death. The fearful crowd turned circles, uneasy as more cries came, growing closer, louder. Within seconds of their heralding, a torrent of people burst from the streets and into the square – an army of unknown warriors at their heels.

 

Weapons drawn, the strange army ran swiftly through the village, scattering its people. The mob fled, abandoning their anger in favor of their lives, and abandoning Will to the pole, at the mercy of fire and death.

 

The torches were dropped to crackle on the packed dirt, just shy of the tinder beneath Will’s bound body. The people were gone in minutes, leaving the fishermen’s son to die at the hands of the army he’d summoned.

 

“The Wendigo…”

 

OoOoO

 

-10 minutes earlier, outside the village-

 

Hannibal studied the thatched roofs of the village before him, his army at his back. This village, like so many others, was a victim of decades of Roman Conquest, its people dominated by the Empire so long that the traditions and roots of the Scotia people have faded from their lives completely. The land and its inhabitants crushed under the repressed beliefs of their conquerors.

 

But no longer… this village he would reclaim.

 

“We take them in a sweep!” he shouted to the army that marched with him, men and women in léines and leather – armed with spear, sword and bow.  His army, his people banded together for a single purpose:  To take back their land from the Romans, to drive them from the island, one village at a time. 

His eyes narrowed. “We take no prisoners, leave no survivors.”

 

The company answered with a roar, following their leader at a run. Into the seaport village they poured, ready to do battle with an ill-prepared populace.  Hannibal lead them dressed in the armor of their Roman enemies – a gladiator’s tunic, a Roman sword – symbols of his creation at their hand and their downfall in his creation.

 

All would know who to blame for the death brought upon them now.

 

The army moved through the village like a sweeping wall, rending flesh and burning the huts in their path.  This was not the first village that Hannibal and his followers had taken, but it would be the first left entirely in blood and ash. No savior would appear, no lives saved, and no land salvaged.  It would be a message to the Empire, written in the blood of their crossbred people. The half-Roman village, adopters of the ways of their conquerors, would be Hannibal’s crimson missive. 

 

A message – Get out.

 

 

OoOoO

 

 

A moan behind him…

 

Hannibal whirls, pulling his sword from the ruined meat at his feet and turning toward a susurrus of whispering at his back.

 

“Consumer of flesh-”

 

A man with eyes like the ocean’s sky spoke from a mounted stake, tears running clean streaks down his dirty face, voice steady with calm, sight lost in a world only he could see.

 

It was a vision that made something ache within Hannibal’s chest, a heaving of memories he’d long since buried.

 

He kicked a torch away before it could catch fire to the tinder and brush.  This man was one of his own. No doubt he’d been captured and sentenced to death for the very beliefs that their people had been born knowing, for devotion to the Gods and Goddesses that ruled these lands.  It was more than enough reason for a rescue, but more importantly, this man was a gift.

 

“Where have you been hiding?”  he whispered to the bound man, stepping through the poorly piled wood – not nearly enough for a proper execution.  He was still young, old enough to be a man, but with few enough winters under his belt to be a seasoned one.

 

“Clarice,” he called to his second in command, swinging his blade to cut the binding rope and gather up the captured Celt.

 

“Hannibal?”

 

 She paused, brow arched as she took in the raving man in her leader’s arms. The bundle was passed to her, murmuring death and carnage into her ear.  She gave her leader a weary look.

 

“Why are we taking a mad man prisoner?”

 

He smiled, the smallest pull of lips as he tried to meet the man’s unfocused stormy eyes, holding their gaze and sensing the fear within. 

 

“He’s not a mad man Clarice, he’s a seer, one of our own.”  He gestured toward her new charge, “We take him with us. Kill the rest.”

 

Clarice gave a wary nod, doubting the raving man in her arms could truly be a seer, but unwilling to argue her leader’s command.

 

“This village is a warning isn’t it?  Are we leaving a marker?”

 

Hannibal looked at the cliff face high above the village. “Oh yes…we’ll leave them a message.”

 

OoOoO

 

It was dark when Will awoke, a surprise, as he hadn’t expected to wake at all.  Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he focused on the blackness surrounding him, registering belatedly the absence of stars above him. Inside then? A tent.

 

Jolted to action with this sudden realization, Will bolted up. Soft fur blankets that were not his own fell away from his body as he scrambled to find the opening flaps of his containment.

 

He paused in his effort, his hand on the leather slit as he listened to the murmur of voices outside, realized the precarious nature of his position.  He’d been captured.

 

Panic began to set in as he searched the tent for a clue of what fate awaited him.  It was hard to see in the darkness, no light streaming through the cured hide, and he found no hint of his captures save the blanket that had warmed him.

 

He reached for his dagger and found it gone – lost in the fight with the villagers perhaps, or taken by whoever his captors may be – it would be no help.  Cursing quietly in frustration, he moved to hands and knees to crawl in the low structure, listening to the sound of murmured voices and footsteps outside.  He would have a better chance escaping unseen if he squeezed out from beneath the bottom of the tent than if he burst through the front and made a run for it. That would welcome a volley of arrows at his back for certain.

 

The smell of cooking on the air made his mouth water. Whoever had taken him was preparing a meal, and it was reminding Will how little he’d eaten before his capture.  But there was no time to think of food – _concentrate –_ so instead Will listened to the voices outside, too much noise around him to make out what’s being said, the murmurs and laughter blending together into a soft hum of humanity.  There were too many voices for Will to begin to guess at their number, uncertain if an attempted escape would result in victory or a swift suicide.

 

He lied on his belly, fingers on the tent’s edge, and froze, heart pounding, as footsteps approached.  They paused outside his tent, Will torn between thoughts of tackling his captor, stealing his weapon for an armed escape, or simply returning to his prone position to feign sleep. The call of a comrade turns the approaching footfalls in the other direction, and Will releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

 

His stomach rolls with the rush nearly being caught. He lifts the tents edge to peek beneath and check for guards, but to Will’s great ire, a large oak is settled against his prison’s back flap, immediately blocking his vision.

 

Beyond its silhouette he can see firelight, the bright glow of orange and gold dancing over the grass. On either side he sees more tents, a virtual sea of leather. He is trapped in the middle, surrounded by an army at rest within their makeshift homes or sleeping beneath the stars.

 

_My best chance may be to hide…_

 

Lifting the leather higher, he edged out beneath it, casting quick glances to either side as he worked to drag himself free.

 

If he could climb the tree he might be able to conceal himself – wait until the army counted him a loss and left without him.  It’s a solution that could take days depending the length of time they plan to remain settled, he could die waiting, or be found at daybreak, but it’s a better plan than attempting to sneak away amongst the tents and bodies lying under the stars.

 

Footsteps approach his tent again and Will moves faster, heart racing, his body half free when he hears the tent flap thrown back.

 

He grabs a root, desperate, and tugs to drag his other half free. His ankle is caught in a grip like iron, Will jerking to fight it, blindly kicking for purchase. Despite his flailing, he’s drug back into the tent – away from the light of scattered stars and distant fire – his nails scrabbling against the ground, in sway of his captor’s strength.

 

With quick efficiency Will is subdued, his captor atop him, holding him hard against the ground. He fights for freedom yet, desperate and struggling until his burst of energy fades, thrashing calmed, and only the sound of Will’s labored breathing remains.

 

“What do you want from me?” he asks, eyes clenched, face against the grass, an arm twisted up his back.

 

“You’re amongst friends.” The man above him speaks calmly, pining him to the ground with little effort – a body solid with muscle against his back.  "You’ve been rescued from the Roman village.”

 

Will swallows hard, making himself breathe more slowly, deeply, fighting the urge to squirm against the grip on his wrist.  It would only tire him more, like wearing down a fish for the catch.  He would be wise to save his remaining strength.  Another moment and the grip is eased, the man climbing from Will’s back to sit by his side, and with a groan Will twists to sit beside him.  The tent is still dark, the entrance flap pulled back to allow a thin stream of light, and Will strains to see into the darkness.  It is clear the man is a soldier, his uniform similar to those of the Romans Will has seen passing through the port village, all shiny metal and heavy leather. 

 

“I don’t understand,” Will says quietly.

 

The man studies him, silent for a long moment.

 

“You were a prisoner of that village,” he says at last, wondering if perhaps he has not saved a seer at all. Perhaps Clarice had been right and he had salvaged a madman only, a mad felon at worst.

 

“Are you not Celtic?”

 

Will swallowed hard, he could see where this was going.  They’d thought they’d saved their own and Will was anything but. 

 

“I would rather be killed then sold,” he ventured, ignoring the man’s questions.

 

He realized that this could only end in two ways: He could now be a prisoner, or he could be killed.  Prisoners were turned to slaves, made to work until they died.

 

Will had created as much distance between them as the small tent allowed.  It would do nothing to save him from a sword, but if his captor would make him a slave – whether for labor or for pleasure – he’d rather feel the kiss of steal.

 

“You’re not being sold,” the man answered, words curling with unfamiliar accent.  He moved, reaching behind himself toward the tent’s entrance. Will scooted away, wishing he had more room to maneuver in the tight confines.

 

The bowl that the man brought into view was unexpected.  It smelled of seaweed and fish, a hearty stew, common amongst the people of his village.  Apparently, its commonality spread across the island.

 

“Am I to be your personal slave then?” Will ventured.

 

“I would rather you be my ally,” the man replied, offering a spoon of broth. Will was nearly hungry enough to take it.  It had been morning when he’d ventured out to barter, his capture near noon, and now with the sun set he had gone the day with only the dried fish and stale bread of his breakfast.

 

“Why? Who are you?”

 

 His mouth watered, but he wouldn’t accept the offered food.  He wanted answers, and couldn’t afford to feel indebted by any amount of kindness from this soldier.

 

His offer of food rejected, the soldier ate the spoonful himself, perhaps as an indication that the offering was not poisoned, perhaps to show that one should not waste provisions. 

 

“What do you remember?”  he questioned as he chewed a mouthful.

 

Will didn’t like being answered with another question, but replied nonetheless.  “I remember being attacked by the mob, tied to the post…” 

 

Another forced waking dream of death and blood had forced words from his mouth.  It had been overwhelming, all those faces he’d known – if only in passing – flashing before his mind’s eye gurgling their last, pleading for mercy.

 

At some point the vision had overwhelmed him, and everything had faded to black. He didn’t know if it was the vision’s end and the dark curtain of his own mind, or his body shutting down against the violent images inside his brain. It was amorphous, like the mysterious passage of time during sleep.

 

But this man didn’t need to know that. Surely he would discover Will’s horrible curse soon enough and bring about his swift end as a result. Will could only hope for a sword to the throat, quick and painless, instead of a fire licking under his feet.

 

“Do you remember your vision?”

 

The soldier’s unexpected insight moved the conversation toward a whole new level of complicated, and for a long moment, Will wasn’t sure how to reply.

 

“You saw my possession?”

 

Will had a sense of disappointment even in this, that this one chance to appear normal, if only to his captor, was snatched from him by his curse.

 

Another spoonful was offered, again rejected, and the soldier ate that as well.  “I found you having a vision.” 

 

He sought Will’s eyes, though not much could be seen within the darkness, and Will kept his own focused on the wide plate of armor across the man’s chest.  “Is that why the town meant to burn you?”

 

“I can’t help it!” Will said with sudden force, surprising even himself.

 

“I see death and fire and then it happens.  They, the villagers… they thought I was summoning demons.”  A whore for the devil.

 

“I don’t expect you can,” the man said, not unkindly. Once again the spoon is offered, and this time, with a curious look into the man’s shadowed face, Will accepted the mouthful of broth from the wooden spoon.  It was delicious, well-flavored after long hours simmering over the fire. 

 

“I know what you are,” the man said with the same sense of calm, “you’re a Seer.”

 

Will stared at the dark shape across from him, considered the eyes that must look back at him from the shadow. Even the imagining of those eyes was too much, and he turned away, uncertain which of them had broken their contact first.

 

“I don’t know what that is,” he admitted quietly.

 

“You have a gift,” the man explained, “one that allows you to see into the future.”  Another spoonful, this one with chunks of seaweed nearly hot enough to burn, and Will was so grateful for it.

 

“It’s a very rare gift, nearly unheard of.”

 

“It’s a curse,” Will scoffed. “I’d gladly give it away if I could.”

 

“You’re bitter, but you needn’t be.” 

 

Will could hear it in his voice, the sincerity.

 

The man leaned forward, only a little. “I would never wish to take something so precious from anyone.”

 

Will huffed a laugh. After all his years suffering, this man calls his pain a ‘gift.’

 

“I was to be burned at the stake for this _gift_ ,” he says, twisting the last word.

 

He turned his attention from the shadowed face. “Is that why you’ve taken me?”

 

“It is.”

 

At least he didn’t deny this.

 

Worry turned Will’s stomach and another, more cloudy, thought came to his mind – the vision, the village.

 

“Where are the others?”

 

Another spoonful is offered, and this time Will turned his cheek. 

 

“There are no others.”

 

It hit him like the slap of a wave. “Wh-what do you mean there are no others? I can’t be the only prisoner!”

 

“You were the only one spared.”

 

When the spoon was offered again, Will knocked the bowl back, shoving hard against the armored chest.  The soldier didn’t move, catching Will’s arms to hold him in the same crushing grip that had drug him back into the tent.

 

“You would turn against the man who saved you from the village’s wrath?” he spoke calmly into Will’s ear.  Will jerked against him, barely a movement gained. “They meant to burn you. You would fight for those people who would see you dead?”

 

Will could have been fighting against a stone wall for all the give in the man’s grip. “They were ignorant! Ignorance doesn’t merit death!”

 

“Ignorance is how the Romans have justified every death on this island,” he man countered.  He freed Will’s arms, allowing him to curl in on himself, to hug his shoulders.

 

“It’s how the people would have justified your burning.”

 

Will no longer knew who this man was, dressed in the armor of the cities’ protectors while speaking against them.  “Who are you?”

 

“I am a survivor of Rome.”

 

“You’re a Celt?”

 

“I was.”

 

That didn’t seem right, the answer as cryptic as the man’s clothing.  “What are you now?”

 

There was quiet for a moment, a consideration.

 

“I’d like your aid,” the man says instead, another non-answer turned back to Will.

 

This was all too much. 

 

“In what?” Will asked with another bleak chuckle. “You want me to help you reconquer Scotia?”

 

The reply came quickly: “I want you to help me free it. In the process we will mutually benefit. You will know comfort and safety, and in exchange, you will tell me what you see.”

 

Silence laid between them. 

 

“I have no control over these spells when they take me.  I just…have them.”

 

“My offer still stands.”

 

He swallowed, throat tight. “Do I have a choice?”

 

He couldn’t see the man’s expression, but he imagined that he smiled, something small and telltale of Will’s true imprisonment.

 

“Prisoners and slaves don’t benefit, nor do they have tents to keep them warm, or food to waste.”  He gathered the spoon and bowl from the grass. “You are coming, and you will help me.  How pleasant you make this experience…is up to you.”

 

OoOoO

 

TBC


	2. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the morning after and Will gets to talk to one of Hannibal's 'men' before meeting with the general.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was floored by the mass number of readers who clicked on this story. Seriously, in three days I had over 1000 hits! That's huge!!!
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who's given this story a chance, even if you've chosen to bow out after only the first chapter, and another thank you to those who will continue reading this lovely piece through to it's end~<3
> 
> Since there will be some touchy material in this I'm going to give the warning now that this story is semi historically accurate. I say semi because I'm making up my own war here and obviously with the use of a seer I'm bending reality a little bit. But with this story being historically accurate that means that there will be mentions of sexism, racism, religion and slavery.
> 
> I want my readers to understand that by no means does this story reflect my own opinions on these matters. I am not racist, sexist or close minded to religion. If I write a character who is that is something I'm writing for the story to create plot and conflict or a reflection of the era in which this story is taking place. It is not my opinion on the matter. If you accuse me of being any of the above or write any form of abuse because of the before mentioned I will delete the comment or report it as I see fit. I've taken way too much abuse from readers over the past year. I'm not doing it anymore. I write for fun. It's an outlet for me. If you don't' like it then don't read it. 
> 
> With that said please enjoy the rest of the story~<3
> 
> I own nothing!
> 
> Beta read by my amazing editing partner Diedofennui, an equally gifted writer who has chosen to waste her time on me~<3

The night drags on, endless in its waking hours, but still morning comes too soon.

As dawn light seeps though the tent flaps, Will watches the leather grow brighter and lighter with the rising sun.  He didn’t sleep last night, lying awake listening to the men changing shifts for watch and talking amongst themselves into the early hours of morning.

He should have closed his eyes, at least tried for a few hours of rest, but he had fought it.  All he could see was a village washed in fire and blood hidden beneath his eyelids.  He had dozed, slipped away for moments only at the peak of midnight, when his eyes had become heavy and sleep was too strong an enemy to fight.

In succumbing to rest Will’s treacherous mind had painted the image of a demon.

He’d seen it in his vision – with skin carved from ebony and a crown of jagged antlers reaching toward the stars – it was the same demon that had walked into the city, had let the village burn and people suffer.  Will had stood in a field of corpses, and the beast had turned to him with eyes like blood and a smile of blunt human teeth.  He’d woken in cold sweat, blurring the moments between waking and rest, and hadn’t been able to close his eyes again.

Now it was dawn, and Will wished he had at least tried to face down the demon for more rest amongst his nightmares.

The flap of his tent pulled back, startling Will to a crouch.  His brow furrowed when he was met with the curious sight of a woman bending toward the opening of his leather cage. 

“Good, you’re up.  We’re moving out.  Do you know how to pack a tent?”

He stared at her for a long moment, confused by her presence.  This was an army.  These people were soldiers, armed blade-wielders who had razed his village to the ground, but this person, amongst so many soldiers, was most definitely a woman.  Will may have been able to dismiss the long ebony hair swept into a bun at the nape of her neck, but there was no denying the unmistakable swell of her breasts beneath a cotton léine. 

As if that wasn’t enough to leave the fisherman’s son at a loss, the woman was neither Roman nor Scotia. Will had never encountered anyone outside the island’s own native people and the invading Romans. He hadn’t known there to be anything beyond the world of his little island and Rome, but this woman crouched before him was different. Her eyes the darkest shade of brown, nearly black in their rich color, with elegant slanting points.  She was unlike any woman he’d ever seen before, exotic and beautiful. 

“I can take down a tent,” he said after too long a pause.

“Good,” –not missing a beat – “come on.” 

She turned from him then, and Will’s skeptical theory, that this person was a fighter, was confirmed by the bow and quiver strapped along her back, by the sword fastened to a sash on her side.  This woman was a warrior.

He crawled out of the low living space after her, squinting into the morning sun as he glanced around the campsite. He took in the full field of soldiers he had seen only in shadow during his attempted escape the night before.  Men and woman alike in equal part stood across the field, dismantling tents and rolling bedding as they readied for travel, all dressed in the same léine and pants.

These women were equals.

“The General says you’re a seer.” 

The woman who’d come for him stood at Will’s side, bringing him back to the present.  He turned his attention back to the tent, not forgetting that he was supposed to be breaking it down. She watched him as he made quick work of the tent, dismantling the sleeping quarter to roll the leather and fasten it with a length of rope.

“Is it true?” she prompted again with a tilt of her head.

He didn’t answer right away, finishing his task before glancing back toward the strange woman.

“He says that I am, but I don’t think so,” Will answered honestly. His eyes focused on the hilt of her sword, and he wet dry lips with the tip of his tongue, deciding to risk a question:  “Where…are you from?”

She didn’t seem surprised by the question, but she looked at him long and hard nonetheless.  A question she was accustomed to answering, but not one she enjoyed. Will could only imagine how often she was asked. 

“Goguryeo, Korea. It’s an eastern country across the water.”

He nodded, letting his eyes move upward once he was certain the sword she held would not strike him down for his query. His glance made it as high as her throat.

“How did you get here?”

“Whose side are you on?”  she asked, ignoring his question, challenging in her distrust.

That was fair. Will didn’t trust her either.

“Side?” he asked.

“Are you with us or are you with the Romans?” she clarified.

Will could already see there was only one right answer for this woman, and he would likely pick the wrong one. 

“I’m not with anyone, I’m a fisherman. That’s it.”

“Are you a Christian?”

His brow furrowed as he nodded, this felt like a trap. 

“I was raised Christian.  The whole village is – was – Christian, it’s illegal to be otherwise.”

She considered him another long moment. Her eyes narrowly sought his own, but he kept his gaze firmly averted.

“So you’re one of them.  Born and raised.”  It was accusing, almost disappointed as she took the tent roll from his arms.  “Are you going to help us?”

Will pulled his gaze from her, staring past her shoulder toward the decimated village. He could still see the cliff’s face despite the distance; he was farther from home than he’d thought. 

“I wasn’t really given a choice.”

“You should be happy you weren’t put in chains.” 

He swallowed at the thought. It was still a very real possibility. The soldier who had dragged him back fighting into his tent last night had given him a “choice.” Will would be either a cooperative captive, or a slave. He still hadn’t made his choice, but he honestly didn’t see much of a difference. 

“Hannibal isn’t kind to Roman prisoners,” she warned lowly.

“Neither are you. And I’m not Roman, I’m a fisherman from a Roman influenced village – believe me, that doesn’t make me one of them.” 

It only placed him under their rule.  The true Romans – born and raised in their native land – were granted the title of their heritage and held the rights of citizens.  Everyone else was disposable. 

“I don’t know what the Empire has done to you or your people, but I haven’t done _anything_ to _anyone_. You’re holding a grudge against me for their wrongs.” 

Will could see it in her – her hatred for the Romans, and by association a hatred of Will.  He aligned himself with the people who had done her harm, and in her eyes that painted Will as guilty as those who had stolen her away.

It was, he assumed, another gift of his curse – the ability to easily read the people around him.  It was tiring, not so much a choice to look and see the people before him, as an unwilling thrust of their emotions and mental state upon his own. It was tiring on a good day, alone in his little house with his father, only the man’s drunken ire to bounce around within the confines of Will’s skull. When he had gone to the market and stood among the people, he felt the heave of their anger and distress crash against him like a wave.  Their hatred had carved deeper wounds then any sword through his flesh.

It was the reason he avoided the village – all that emotion poured into him like water at the mouth of a river.

“You are Roman,” she accused.

“I’m Scotian,” he countered, “I didn’t choose what village I was born into.”

“You chose what you follow and believe.”

“Not when the choice is to follow the Roman or be dead.”

She looked at him piercingly, the flicker of something painful passing behind her eyes before her gaze relented.

“I was taken as a slave by the Romans six winters back.”  She cast a look across the field and Will followed her gaze to a man dressed in the armor of a gladiator, the only man amongst them clad in the heavy iron. The one he’d spoken to last night. 

“One winter ago, Hannibal brought down a Roman fort.  He freed all the Celtic prisoners who hadn’t been executed, drove out the soldiers, and offered to take me with him – as an equal.”

Will watched the woman’s profile as she made her confession. He knew that her experiences gave her more than enough reason to want the Romans dead, along with anyone who would take their side.  It also explained her fierce loyalty to the foreign tribe she had aligned herself with.

“Do you think you’ll ever find a way home?”

Her eyes widened. Will’s query had surprised her, but to him, it seemed more important than anything else he could ask.  For Will, having that one safe place he could call his own, and know that he belonged, was more important than anything else in the world.  He couldn’t imagine a life without that place. 

Now it seemed that he wouldn’t have much choice. A new home would have to be sought once the Celtic’s tired of his “gift,” and released him from captivity.

…if they didn’t kill him for his lineage when they finished with him.

“No,” the woman said softly, “I don’t think I’d make it home.”

Will felt her sorrow more than saw it, the barest shift of something behind her eyes, the tightening of skin along her jaw.  It was something she dearly desired, but out of her reach. 

“I’m sorry,” he offered, uncertain what more could be said.

He turning his gaze back to the armored soldier she’d called Hannibal, watching as the man saddled a horse.  It was definitely the warrior from the night before – broad shoulders, toned legs, the same strange costume of Rome.

“I think I might have some idea of how that feels?” he offered sardonic.  He certainly couldn’t go home now.

“Maybe a little,” she agreed begrudingly.  “You still have your country.”

Something twisted in his chest, a dull ache at the thought of his small straw hut by the sea burned to ruins.  He should have been grateful that it was the village that had ended, rather than his own life…but it had been home.

“Good morning Beverly…Seer,” Hannibal greeted, nodding to each in turn. 

He lead a beautiful dark horse by bridle and reins. Will wanted both to feel the dark coat of the beast and to stay far enough away to avoid a trampling.

“Are you ready to set off?”

Beverly hefted the bundled tent, resting it under her arm.

“As soon as I strap this to a horse.”

He nodded, pleased, and swung effortlessly onto the mount, one sandaled foot in the stirrup and onto the stallion in a single fluid motion.

Will had no illusions of sharing the same capability.  He could walk a boat out into the water and climb in without capsizing, even stand steadily during high winds and bring in a net of fish, but he’d never so much as touched a horse. He would be more likely to startle the beast into kicking him than to successfully mount one.

The apparent leader of the strange company didn’t seem to mind Will’s unease around his animal, instead offering him a hand to climb up. 

“You’ll ride with me,” he informed, and it was clear that it was not an offer.

Though it would better than being tethered by rope collar at Hannibal’s side, the notion of riding with his captor was still unpleasant. 

“We still need to finish our conversation,” the man added.

Will gave a snort. He didn’t think there was anything left to say after their words of the night before. 

“I don’t need to ride a horse to talk with you.”

“I think it would be best if we kept our continued discussion private,” Hannibal insisted, hand outstretched and waiting.

Will looked from the hand to the horse and then back to the army surrounding them. It was true that their words would not be meant for all ears, not if these warriors still thought they’d saved one of their own.  Will took the offered hand, and with surprising strength Hannibal lifted him onto the horse’s front. He straddled the beast uncertainly, pressed back against the armored chest behind him, heart hammering as he searched for balance.

“Relax Seer, he won’t hurt you,” Hannibal soothed, voice a deep rumble against his back. A muscular arm came to wrap around Will’s waist, steadying him on the mount until his scrambling hands settled against the soft fur of the beast’s neck, and the hammering in his chest eased to a gentle strum.

“Will,” he corrected at last, fingers splaying in the soft bristles of fur. “My name is Will Graham, not Seer.”

“My name is Hannibal,” the warrior offered in turn, released Will’s waist to take the reins on either side, “this is Pontius.”

“It sounds Roman…” Will noted, one hand keeping him steady against the horse’s neck as the other moved to brush fingers through its dark mane.  “I thought you didn’t like the Romans.”

“I acquired him from a previous owner,” Hannibal clarified.  He glanced around the field, seeing his men and woman laden with packs, those with horses mounted in readiness.  “I saw no need to take his identity from him.”

Will nodded in surprised agreement, then cringed when Hannibal loudly called out behind him, gathering the army’s attention to move for home before pulling the reins and beginning a trot.

They were followed at once, a cluster of bodies trailing behind with various packs and mounts, talking amongst themselves as they marched.

Will clung more tightly to the horse as he lurched with each bouncing movement, body jerking with the unfamiliar sway beneath.

“Move with him,” Hannibal instructed, grasping the reins with one hand and setting the other to Will’s hip, guiding his movements. “Shoulders back, chest out.”

Will followed the guidance of his touch, shifting to follow and finding the jolts lessoned beneath him, a little smoother as he rocked with instead of against the horse.

He supposed he should have thanked the man for the quick lesson, but he didn’t.  He was still being kidnapped, whether he was on the horse or dragged behind it. 

“Tell me Will, have you given any thought to my offer?”

It wasn’t truly an offer, and Hannibal knew it.  It was the choice of willing aid or forced servitude.

“I don’t want to use it,” Will said plainly. He refused to align himself to any side, unsure what that alignment would entail, whether it would mean blood on his hands or blood flowing from his own throat.

“You use it whether you wish to or not,” Hannibal countered, “this will only give your gift a purpose.”

“It’s not a gift,” Will corrected again, a repetition of their verbal sparring the night before. “And I’m not too keen on the notion of seeing my people to ruin either.”

The grip on his hip tightened, displeasure at Will’s bold words, “You consider the Romans your people?”

“I consider the people of Scotia my people,” he snapped. “I don’t care who fucks who to birth them, if they’re born here they’re my people.”

“There are many who would disagree with you William,” Hannibal said flatly.  “Most would align themselves with the land and culture who raised them.”

“I was raised by my father and the sea,” he answered, voice quiet and gaze captured by the endless fields before them.  It made him think of the ocean, the wind caressing the grass to dance like verdant waves.

He’d never been so far from home before. 

“I stopped going to the village when I was five.” 

He’d nearly been stoned to death as a child, the villagers hating him even then for his "gift". He awakened later, confused, pained and bloody in his father’s bed.  It had been close. 

“My father made all the trips for barter until he died – that was two moons ago – then I had no choice.” 

Then they’d tried to burn him.

He would have stayed by the water’s edge and died there if necessity hadn’t forced him to the village. 

“I know the laws of the Romans and I follow them.  It doesn’t mean I align myself with anyone.”

“Only that you seek to be left alone.”

When Will didn’t answer, Hannibal continued. “That sounds very lonely Will.  You don’t have to be on your own.”

“The alternative is violence, pain and death.  I’ve never had a choice.”

“You have the choice now Will. My people understand you. They will praise you for your gift, help you understand who and what you are, help you learn to use it.” 

It sounded like a dream, one of those stories of mermaids and magic his father use to tell him when he was too drunk to think better of spreading fairy tales.  Those beautiful white lies of better things.

“Where we are going you are not alone,” Hannibal whispered.

It made Will’s chest squeeze with something he hadn’t felt in a long time…

OoOoO

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are petting the ponies while your comments are fucking around with boys and arrows.


	3. Fae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traveling, eating, conversation and fishing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I have no sense of time as I didn't realize that it has been nearly a month since I last updated anything...sorry about that...
> 
> But I swear I've been writing! Just not to anything that anyone is reading...oh well. 
> 
> New story coming, I'll start posting that gem once I'm finished writing it, none of my usual 'post it as I go' business with this new one! No sir! XD
> 
> Anyway, enough of my foolishness. Thank you to my lovely readers who've stuck with the story thus far, I didn't thinkI'd have to say that two chapters in but once I updated the tags with chapter two I actually lost over half my readers for this fic, so again, a big thanks you to those of you who chose to stay~<3
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> Beta read by the amazingly talented Diedofennui!!! Thank you babe~<3 <3 <3

It was with every intention of escape that Will sat obediently on the horse, jostled between the beast’s neck and Hannibal’s iron-clad front.  He had hoped to make his move shortly after he’d gained some understanding of how to ride the beast, intending to shove the warrior off behind him. However the longer he remained seated on the back of the beast, the more his intensions for escape slowly eroded  
   
   
Thoughts of post-escape arrows fired in his direction, paired with the growing pain in his ass and loins…his initial plan was now little more than wishful thinking.  It didn’t help that despite so many hours riding the damn thing, Will still didn’t have a proper understanding of how to control it. He had thought riding was something he would more or less learn as he went – preferably in a race away from the company.  But as the ache in his body grew with each passing hour, Will found himself thinking desperately of ways to get down and stay off the awful thing rather than ride it.  
   
   
   
Even being led behind by a rope had gained a certain amount of appeal since he’d started riding.  
   
   
   
Will tried to shift and ease the pain growing in his lower body for what felt like the hundredth time since their departure, swallowing down a groan of frustration when little was gained from the movement.  
   
   
   
“You’ll get used to it,” Hannibal assured him, having felt his increased squirming with the passing leagues.  
   
   
   
“You had me ride with you on purpose,” Will accused, searching for relief in another shift and knowing it would accomplish nothing but half a moment’s comfort before he was returned to the deep-seated ache. He wished for the ground beneath his feet, but at this point he was more likely to lie down flat when the company finally stopped for rest.  
   
   
   
They would have to rest, Will thought to himself, surely soon. He may not have ridden before, but every hoof beat made him more fatigued. They’d have to stop sometime.  
   
   
   
Hannibal smiled, shifting his fingers to feel Will’s torso shift pleasantly beneath, his palm following the stiff movements of the seer’s body with the mount.  Hannibal had long since learned to ride long distances, but he still remembered his learning curve, the long hours of ache that came with learning to ride.  He knew what Will was feeling, and just how long it would last after dismounting.   
   
   
   
“I did suggest we speak in private.”  
   
   
   
“Liar,” Will mumbled with as much heat as his tired body would allow. His stomach growled, offering additional discomfort for him to focus on. “You knew I’d be too sore to think of anything beyond sleep once we dismounted. Now you won’t have to worry about me trying to escape.”  
   
   
   
Hannibal’s smile grew a little more, touched his eyes. Such a clever boy.  
   
   
   
“Would you like to dismount?” he offered.  
   
   
   
“At least you don’t deny it.” A sardonic smile pulled Will’s lips as he looked back at the smug warrior. “And I think we both know if you put me on my feet at this point I won’t be able to stand.”  
   
   
   
“You think I planned for that?”  Hannibal asked.  
   
   
   
“I do.”  
   
   
   
“You’re right.”  
   
   
   
Will glanced over his shoulder, taking in as much of Hannibal as he could in only a moment. The man’s hair was tied back, a short length of braid falling to his shoulders, a light beard taking shape. Will supposed that genocide didn’t allow much time for grooming, but given the scarcity of whiskers, Hannibal must partake in it when not traveling for war.  
   
   
His quick glance was met by his captor’s eyes, crimson-soaked earth meeting Will’s stormy grey. He felt his heart flutter, recognizing the eyes he had seen in his dream.  
   
   
   
He wondered if the man would have the same toothy smile to grin at Will from across a bloodied field.  
   
   
   
“I think there is a very good chance that when you let me off this horse my knees will buckle,” Will said, distracting his mind from the truth he saw and didn’t want to acknowledge.  
   
   
   
He’d never been wrong – not when it came to his blasted visions – but this was one of those moments in life when he desperately wished to be.  He hoped he’d misunderstood his curse and that the monster with the man’s smile was only a metaphor, not the warrior sitting at his back.  
   
   
   
“This is your first time riding, it will get easier,” Hannibal suggested again.  
   
   
   
The hand that had remained on his waist to keep him steady for so many hours finally moved, reaching into a saddle bag behind him to procure a pouch, settling it in the space between Will’s legs for balance as he opened it to produce a shelled chestnut.   
   
   
   
“Do you want it to get easier?”  Will asked, mouth-watering as he looked at the food.  He was starving, willing to eat grass at this point if it would ease the ache and make his stomach feel a little less empty.  
   
   
   
“Of course.” He brought the nut to Will’s lips first, offering the boy who hadn’t eaten either dinner or breakfast the first morsel, encouraging him to eat. “I want you to join me.  I want you to grow strong.”  
   
   
   
Afraid to take his hands from the beast lest he fall, Will accepted the nut from the Hannibal’s hand, lips skimming fingers as he took it onto his tongue.  Despite Will’s abduction at his hand, this man had already shown him more kindness then he’d ever known from the people of his village.  Will couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t fair as he accepted another nut from a murderer’s hand.  Now that he’d sampled it, his stomach cramped for food.  “What if I won’t join you?  What if I don’t want to be a part of an ongoing massacre?”  
   
   
   
“What if I promise you need never lift a blade?”  
   
   
   
Another nut, the sweet taste of its flesh flooding his mouth as he chewed. He wanted them faster, more, the small morsels a tease for his hunger.  “How can you promise that when you’re leading a war?”  He lifted a hand to reach for the bag, but grabbed the horse again when he felt himself unsteady.  Blast this beast of burden, he thought with ire, accepting another nut.  
   
   
   
“I will only take you as far as the border, leave you hidden and safe away from the battle.  You will share your visions with me when you have them and in doing so never have to lift a blade to defend yourself.”  
   
   
Hannibal smiled when greedy lips took the food more quickly from his fingers, the sweep of tongue looking to gather the nut’s sweet residue from his calloused fingers as he ate.  His hunger was spiking.  Without supper the night before or breakfast this morning, the boy was starving, and with Hannibal as his only source for food and safety, he would draw the boy to him as he would a falcon.  
   
   
   
“If I don’t have a choice but to help you, why do you keep offering me one as if I do?”  
   
   
There was no malice behind Will’s question; more a tired curiosity as he opened for yet another nut and the hand that held it passed him, bringing the bite to Hannibal’s thin lips instead.  It made Will want to bite him.  
   
   
   
“Because even if the choice you desire is not being offered, there is still a choice to be made. One will grant you privilege and one that will take it away.”  He ate another nut, crunched the roasted chestnut and met narrowed stormy eyes.  
   
   
   
His point was made.  
   
   
   
Will was permitted to ride and given food better than mere scraps to keep him alive all because, despite circumstances, he was not yet a prisoner.  
   
   
   
But he could be.  
   
   
   
Will could be reduced to following the horse by leash and begging for dinner by the cold night’s end.  He could be forced to carry heavy packs and clean the camp and cut the firewood for nothing.  All the while having his curse used against his will.  
   
   
   
Or, he could be treated as one of their own.  
   
   
   
“How long do I have to decide?”  
   
   
   
Another nut was brought to his lips and Will accepted it without the nip he’d considered before. He thought of the true meaning behind the gesture of feeding him, the sense of ownership the man held over him even in this.  
   
   
   
“You have until we reach the settlement,” Hannibal allowed. “By then if you’ve offered me no answer than I will assume you wish to be a captive and you will be treated as one.”  
   
   
   
That was more than fair.  The man was giving him time to think about it beyond the night he’d spent lying awake, a generosity most captors would never imagine, never mind allow. Hannibal would need to tell his village something upon their arrival, and it would paint Will as friend or foe until he died.  
   
   
   
“Thank you,” Will said at last. He hadn’t thanked him for the riding or the food, but he would thank him for this kindness.  
   
   
   
The warrior didn’t answer, continuing to guide the steed as he pressed more nuts to the young man’s mouth until the bag was empty and Hannibal knew that gnawing ache would have left Will’s stomach.  Though the boy was being difficult, Hannibal could see that Will had experienced enough unkindness that he was simply suspicious of all generosity. His gifts would be an aid to the cause; an aid that Hannibal desperately wanted on his side. He was willing to wait and work to earn this boy’s trust.  
   
   
   
“If you run,” he warned, “I will accept the attempt at escape as your answer.”   
   
   
   
Hannibal tucked the small bag away, his hand moving once again to hold Will at the hip.  They would be stopping soon, a much-needed break for his army and their horses.  It would be another few days before they reached their home, more than enough time for him to make an impact on the valuable seer and bend Will to his perspective.   
   
   
   
Pulling the reins, Hannibal stopped his horse and raised a hand to the approaching army at their back, calling out that they would stop for rest, food, and water.  
   
   
   
It sounded like a miracle to Will after too many long hours astride the horse.  Hannibal was the first to dismount, helping Will to the ground as he moved to fall from the beast’s back.  “I don’t think I’m meant for riding,” he mumbled. Muscles screamed in his legs and it was only with effort that he didn’t fall back onto his sore ass.  
   
   
   
“Not everyone is,” Hannibal agreed, leading the tired animal toward freshwater.  Will followed, the only other option being to stay sill and allow himself to be surrounded by other soldiers unfriendly to his kind.  
   
   
   
With pained movements he walked behind the warrior and his mount toward the water’s edge.  He looked down into its depths, through the crystal clear water to the long reedy grass and large rocks at its bottom.   
   
   
   
“Fishing is something I can do,” he said with a smile, watching the large green fish move against the current away from the drinking horse.  They were beautiful to watch, soothing in a way he’d always found the sound of the ocean to be, and just as refreshing to eat.  His father had once told him that with Will’s love of fish and water he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been able to live off them alone.  
   
   
   
“You’ve no net,” Hannibal offered, watching as the younger man pulled the hem of his léine between his knees to tuck into his belt, rising it high enough to leave his thighs bare before moving toward the river.  
   
   
   
“I don’t need a net,” Will replied, pausing only when his bare foot touched the cold rocks. “May I?” He looked back at his keeper.  
   
   
   
“You’re not yet my prisoner.”  
   
   
   
“But I’m not free either.”  
   
   
   
Hannibal smiled and gave a nod, permission granted and argument won.  
   
   
   
Hannibal stroked Pontius’s mane, watching as the seer walked himself knee deep into the water, bending at the waist to dip his hands into the river and hold himself as still as stone, eyes bright and awake despite his lack of food and sleep, watching the water.  
   
   
   
It was an interesting sight to see this boy who’d shown nothing but resentment and fear since their meeting, finally lose himself to the water.  
   
   
   
“Is he trying to catch a fish?” Beverly asked, a dark brow raised as she brought her horse to drink next to Hannibal’s.  
   
   
   
“It would seem so.”  
   
   
   
“Don’t most people use a rod or net for that?”  
   
   
   
Hannibal didn’t answer, his attention instead focused on the silent man in the water.  He was still, quiet, and Hannibal was nearly ready to look away when Will began to hum, a quiet lull that would have had most fisherman cursing the noise that would scare away the fish.  Pale brows raised as Will continued the soft melody, growing marginally in volume as he continued to wait.  
   
   
   
It was soothing, like the patter of spring rain after a long drought, refreshing and drawing.  Hannibal felt a desire to step toward Will and join him in the water as he created soft music with his throat.  The trance broke suddenly as Will pulled two large tench from the river, a smile splitting his solemn face as he held them up in triumph.   
   
   
   
“Apparently,” Hannibal whispered to Beverly, “ he doesn’t need either.”  
   
   
   
Bev stared in utter amazement at the two fish caught with nothing but Will’s bare hands and the quiet sound of his voice.  "Is it magic?"  
   
   
   
"He is a seer," Hannibal said simply.  
   
   
   
 It brought some clarity as to how a man with watered Celtic blood had obtained the gift of precognition. The song he’d heard, the near drunken call he’d felt to it…Hannibal had heard it once before, and it had nearly killed him.  A song used against sailors, not meant as magic to catch fish.  
   
   
   
"Where did you learn to do that?" Hannibal asked as Will trudged from the river water, cold fish in hand.  
   
   
   
"My father was a fisherman," Will shrugged. Hannibal and Bev knew some of his past, his ability to catch a few fish shouldn’t come as such a surprise to either of them.  
   
   
   
“Where did you learn how to draw them to you like that?” Hannibal asked instead.  
   
   
   
“I’ve always known the tune,” he answered with a furrowed brow. Will supposed it was just another odd thing about him. “I would sing when I got bored as a child and the fish would come."   
   
   
   
He'd never questioned it before, thought nothing of it really. His father had told him it was a gift from his mother during the earlier years of his life.  
   
   
   
Reaching for his knife, Will’s hand froze in dismay when his fingers brushed against an empty sheath instead.  Though unpleasant, he could work without it. He’d just cook the fish on a stick and eat around the entrails instead of properly gutting it first.  
   
   
   
A knife thudded by his side, and Will cast a look to Hannibal before picking it up.  “Thanks.”   
   
   
He looked at the blade, Iron, and carefully lifted it by the handle.  He didn’t use iron often, almost never.  He’d learned at a young age the metal was like poison to him, a simple cut burning him and bringing him fever.  
   
   
   
He could handle the blade so long as it didn’t pierce his skin.  
   
   
   
So long as he was careful.  
   
   
   
Hannibal watched him, the careful way he lifted the blade, holding it by the handle, keeping his fingers clear of its edge.  But he could lift it, unrepelled by the touch of iron. Isn’t that interesting?  
   
   
   
If what Hannibal suspected was true, Will’s ability to touch iron at all was impressive.  “Your knife was copper wasn’t it?”  
   
   
   
Will didn’t look up from his filleting, carefully scraping off scales and slipping the blade from gill to tail, slipping the guts free with a quick flick.  “What of it?”  
   
   
   
“Why not iron?”  He watched the continued tentative use of his knife, fingers clear, blade away.  
   
   
   
Will didn’t answer, tossing the blade back to the leader’s feet as he laid his fish to the side and began gathering wood for a fire.  It was the wrong order for cooking super, but he was one man and getting into the water had been his first priority.  
   
   
   
Hannibal followed his Will’s path into the woods.  He limped ahead, movements slow and tender, as Hannibal had expected after the long ride. He gathered the tinder gingerly, ignoring Hannibal’s footsteps behind him.  
   
   
   
“You use copper instead because iron hurts you.”  
   
   
   
Will paused, arms full of branches as he looked back at the soldier. “How do you know so much about me when I know so little about myself?”  
   
   
   
To this the warrior smiled, “Because I have lived outside your narrow-minded village and seen more of the world than you know to exist.”  Will narrowed his gaze, sight focused on the warrior’s mouth, that same fucking smile as the one from his vision.  
   
   
   
“I was wrong Will, you’re not one of us, you’re something else entirely.”  
   
   
   
Will shook his head. “That… doesn’t make any sense.”  He was Roman and then he was Celtic and now he’s neither.  
   
   
   
The man was as cryptic in speech as he was mysterious in life, and it was as frustrating to Will as the curse that followed him.  
   
   
   
“I believe you’re part fae.”  
   
   
   
OoOoO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are screaming humns at the fish while your comments are throwing fish guts at the Roman's. 
> 
> The author is throwing updates at her beta who sobs over a broken keyboard.


	4. Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal discuss religion and race.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely readers, I'm happy to see so many of you are still enjoying the story and hope you'll continue to do so. 
> 
> There's a religious debate in this chapter just so you're aware before reading.
> 
> Uncial – Roman equivalent for inch  
> Magick – Chakra, energies, fae, ect.  
> Magic – pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 
> 
> In this story all supernatural or magic creatures are real. But like we globalize all small creatures with legs as bugs (both insects and arachnids) thought they're not all the same thing, I'm having Hannibal globalize all magick creatures as faeries, including the foreign ones. So Greek mythology, Roman, Celtic and Egyptian, ect. it's all real and Hannibal groups them all together as magick and fae.
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> THANK YOU DIEDOFENNUI FOR BETA READING FOR ME DESPITE YOUR VERY BROKEN COMPUTER!!!! <3 <3 <3

“Fae?”  Will repeated, certain he’d misheard, waiting for the warrior to correct his assumption.  
  
“Faerie,” Hannibal amended, “magick folk.”  Will continued to stare at him, disbelieving, uncertain.   
  
“You’ve never heard of magick before?” Hannibal prompted again. Given what he had learned of the village over the past days, and his own understanding of Roman culture, Hannibal didn’t find it hard to believe that Will would be in the dark.  
  
“I was taught plenty about demons and their spells,” Will hissed, grabbing another piece of wood if only to busy his hands and distract himself from the man at his back. As if it was not enough that Will was cursed, Hannibal would have him filled with the devil too.   
  
He couldn’t live with himself if he became one of the devil’s own.  
  
Hannibal watched as the boy grabbed at small, green twigs, damp useless thing for a fire. Will had passed over many like them when he’d began looking, he knew the difference between good kindling and poor. He was distracted; Hannibal’s words had stung.    
  
“I said faerie, not demon,” Hannibal corrected gently. “Christians have a tendency to make everything about the devil if that something doesn’t pay homage to their Pope and their God.”  Hannibal strove to speak without the bitterness that he felt bleeding into his words. “There’s more to the world than heaven and hell.”  
  
“How would you know?” Will turns on him. “Have you ever been to church?  Have you heard the preaching of a priest even once?”  He narrows his eyes, angry at what his life has become, all in the name of God, his own and theirs, the God that would see him burn and the one that would spare him for his gift. “You’re ignorant.”  
  
Hannibal breathes deeply, taking no insult in having found Will’s sore spot, choosing instead to press harder and see how much it hurts.   
  
“Have you ever set foot in your village church, Will?”    
  
He knows that Will has not, watches as the boy’s shoulders hunch, anger transforming into bitter pain. No, he’s never seen the inside of the little church with the wooden cross carved into the door. He’d barely seen the village.    
  
“Who taught you your faith then, your father or the village priest?”  
  
Will returned to his search for tinder,pulling the wet wood from his arms to replace with something dry. ”I didn’t go to the church,” he admits. “I’d only been to the village a few times before yesterday, maybe three.  I avoided it.”  
  
Because to go to the village was to risk death.  
  
“Tell me who taught you.”  
  
Will selects another questionable branch, tosses it to the side, silent.  
  
“Will?”  
  
“A priest,” he finally offers. “He came to my house twice a moon to teach me of God and to try to banish the devil from me.”   
  
It was a painful memory, one that had driven a stake between he and his father.   
  
 “Did he hurt you?” Hannibal asks quickly. He himself had been hurt, the Romans doing their best to beat the heathen out of him.  
  
“No...no it was fine.  He came and I learned. I had hoped it would make me normal, that I would eventually be able to go to the village.”  He closes his eyes and sees the ocean, remembers its cool wetness against his skin.    
  
“The priest came one day while I was fishing in the water.”   
  
He’d been singing, watching the fish swim around his ankles, feeling them slip between his fingers as he stood with his hands in the water. He’d been playing more than fishing, only five winters old.   
  
“He must have seen what I was doing. I didn’t know he was there until I heard him scream. My father had...killed him.”    
  
He could still see the shocked horror on the man’s face, and the pain on his father’s as he pulled the length of sword free from the holy man’s back.  
  
Will’s father assured him he’d done nothing wrong, but then he had been quiet for days afterward, still and considering. His father drank more after that.  
  
As a child, Will never had understood what he’d done wrong, what he’d done to cause the priest’s death.  Now that he had seen Bev and Hannibal’s reaction to his fishing, his song, he understood why. It was another aspect of himself that made him a monster, another side of the curse. Will’s innocent use of it as a child had driven him to damnation, past the point where the priest could save him.   
  
If the priest hadn’t died at his father’s hand, Will would have been burned as a child of 5.   
  
Hannibal couldn’t see the boy’s face, not with Will’s back to him, but he read the sorrow in his voice, in the tightness of his body.   
  
“Did your father teach you religion after that?”  
  
“No. He told me I didn’t need religion.”   
  
“But you wanted to know?”  
  
“Of course I wanted to know! The priest had told me God could save me. I wanted, still want, to be saved. I don’t want this curse!”    
  
He knows he doesn’t have enough wood to make a decent fire, but he stomps back toward the camp to work with it just the same. He can concentrate on the fish, hope that their conversation will end with the proximity of listening ears.  
  
Hannibal follows, retrieving his flint stone from a pouch on his belt and watches as Will drops his wood to focus his frustrations on tinder.  He crouches beside him, clashing the rocks to start a spark and light the brush beneath the piled wood. The clearing by the waters side was no longer vacant, filled now with men and women crowding the length of water to fill their pouches and water their horses.    
  
“You’re not cursed, Will.” Hannibal said softly as they watched the fire creep along the kindling. ”You’ll understand it once you reach my people’s settlement.”  
  
“Because your people are devil worshipers?”   
  
Hannibal shook his head, reaching inside himself for patience. “You call me ignorant when you sit before me as its embodiment.”   
  
Will’s angry storm-colored eyes turn to Hannibal, ready to respond.  
  
“I am well versed of the Christian faith and your God,” Hannibal clarifies. “I lived with the Roman’s for twenty years, and my master would not see me left an “ignorant heathen” while part of his household.”    
  
Will’s expression softens, his gaze falling from Hannibal’s face to his armour.  
  
“Then you know what they say about your Gods?” Will asks.  
  
“I know what they have taught you to believe,” Hannibal corrects gently. ”Your priests and your Pope force people to believe that the pagan Gods and Goddesses are demons, that the energies and Magick of the world are dark spells. The clergy are the most ignorant of us all.”  
  
“But how can you know the scripture and still believe that the Devil is a God?”  Will counters, urgency in his voice.  
  
Hannibal smiles, taking a more comfortable seat beside the fisherman’s son and begins to whittle a point onto a stick, staying quiet until he begins on a second piece. “I believe that I am the better informed of us two to be making religious decisions.”  
  
“But you’re biased,” Will says quickly.  
  
“As are you,” Hannibal grants, “but I am also informed. I was taught the Celtic ways as a boy and the Christian as a slave.”  He pushes the point of a whittled stick through a fish and hands it to Will before he turns to skewer the other.  “My beliefs are heavily swayed by my hatred for the Romans, and by the heritage of my people, but ultimately, I do not believe in any god at all.”    
  
He meets Will’s eyes and sees the confusion in them.  
  
“Accepting the existence of Magick is not the same as a belief in divinity.” When he smiles again it’s small and cruel, nearly mocking, and with a laugh he says, “If there is a god, one or many, male or female, they have no love for me.”  
  
“So you hate the Christian faith and its believers, and claim that magick is real and good?” Will questions.  
  
Hannibal moves his fish into the fire, watches as flames lick along its flesh.  
  
 “The Gods and Goddesses of my people do not demand the sacrifice of sons and daughters as Jephthah and Abraham have done of yours.  They do not murder thousands in a flood of the earth sparing only their most faithful followers.”  
  
Will counters quickly: “What about when he sent Moses to save the slaves or sacrificed his son to have all the people in the world forgiven of sin?”    
  
They were some of the few holy teachings Will could still remember from his time with the priest, it had been so long ago, he’d been so young.  He felt he’d forgotten most of them.  
  
“Trust that your faith is not as loving as you were taught that it is,” Hannibal says. “It’s your choice to believe in what you will, but you are not cursed. Your men of faith are simply fearful of what they do not understand. If they can’t use knowledge to service themselves, than its evil, and evil must be destroyed.”    
  
Destroyed so that it can never be used against them.  
  
Men, women, children, crystals, bones and herbs – nothing survived the Pope’s conquest for unification.   
  
“You’ve given me no reason to think of magick as anything but evil,” Will says, unconvinced.  
  
“Is fire magick?  The rain?  The air we breathe?”  
  
“No, but those aren’t the same as-”  
  
“How are they different?” Hannibal queries. He slowly turns the fish on its stick, moving pensively as he and Will continue their back and forth. “Magick is only the manipulation of the energies around us and what is already here.  It is no more evil than the heat of the fire we use to cook and keep us warm, or the water that runs both fresh and salt.  A blacksmith is no more demon for his skill to craft than you are for your visions.”  
  
“No, it’s not the same.” Will frowns in concentration. “People aren’t meant to manipulate the elements.”  
  
“Didn’t Moses open the waters for his people?  Make fire rain down on Egypt?  Turn the Nile to blood?”  
  
“God gave those powers to Moses, only God is permitted to use…magic.  Anything else is unholy.”  
  
Hannibal knows how deeply the teachings of the priest burrowed into Will’s mind. Will’s father had surely meant to save him emotional torment by ceasing his education early on – keep him from being made to believe that he was a demon wrapped in human skin. It was sad that the father’s efforts to save his son had not entirely worked.    
  
“It’s still magick, Will.”  
  
Will rolled his own fish before it could burn, turning to Hannibal again: “They used the power of God. It’s not the same.”  
  
“And your powers cannot be a gift from your God?”   
  
Will scoffed. “You know they can’t be, if they were then why would the priest have come to save me?”  
  
Hannibal closed his eyes, let the world fall away to be replaced by the great palace halls of Rome and the endless meadow he’d been born into. It was the kingdom of his mind, and he searched the great halls for a room that stored the memories of his Christian education.  
  
He opened his eyes again. “Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, delivery of tongues and interpretation of tongues.”    
  
Will’s brow creased in surprise as he studied the man at his side.  
  
“These are the nine gifts of your God’s holy spirit,” Hannibal says with satisfaction. ”I call you a Seer; they would call you a prophet.”  
  
“What?”    
  
The priest had never told him of any gifts of the Lord that could explain his curse, could turn into something good. He knew only of demons, of his own sins and lack of faith.    
  
“He said it was from the Devil,” Will whispers, eyes wide.  
  
“That’s because they couldn’t use you to sway people toward the church.  You have something far beyond the skills of normal deviation.  You are very special, Will.”  
  
“The priests only teach the scripture. They don’t, wouldn’t, manipulate it. That would be-”  
  
“Blasphemy?”  Hannibal asks.  
  
Will feels a part of himself die at the word.    
  
“I told you. Your church is not as holy as you think.”  
  
“One man manipulating scripture doesn’t make the church,” Will insists.  
  
“You’re right,” Hannibal says, “One man does not.  But your Pope taxes believers until they live in hovels. The church tells its followers that it is the will of God that they take the people’s money, that they need it to spread their holy word.”    
  
Hannibal had seen it since his return, the visiting priests demanding everything but blood from the people who could barely afford to live.    
  
“Your Pope sits on a throne of gold. He dresses in robes of silk and eats until he’s fatter than the pigs he dines on. As do his holy men.”  
  
“They don’t-”  
  
“They do. I have seen it.”    
  
Hannibal had met the Pope once. He was an honored guest of the emperor for a week of gladiatorial tournaments, Hannibal offering the men entertainment by slaying non-believers, just like himself, within the coliseum.   
  
For a week and a day he’d killed his own, and then a lion for the Pope’s entertainment. By the week’s end, he’d killed twenty men – two his cousins – and the Pope had told Hannibal that his life had been a spared by the hand of God guiding his sword to victory.    
  
Hannibal had imagined a thousand ways to kill the pope since that week...  
  
“Are you telling me they lied, and my curse is a gift from God?”    
  
Will didn’t know if it made his situation better or worse. He would be damned by the people for accepting his gift as a blessing, but – at least – his soul itself would not be damned.  
  
Hannibal could sense that he was at last getting through to him. The boy was realizing that he was not, and had never been, cursed.  It brought Hannibal that much closer to Will’s alliance.    
  
“You have a gift, Will. Be it from your God, the Celt’s, or your mother. Your visions are no more a curse than my skill with a sword is mine.”  
  
But that still didn’t give answer to the question of magick.  
  
“You said my mother was a faerie,” Will asked tentatively. ”Why did you say that?”  
  
This would be a sensitive topic, needing an even more delicate hand.   
  
“What can you tell me of your mother?”  
  
“Nothing.”    
  
Will was sitting back from the fire, sinking his teeth into the savory meat of the tench between words.   
  
“My father told me she left when I was born.”  
  
“But he told you that she could sing the way you do. Did he tell you how he met her, what she looked like?”    
  
Hannibal withdrew the other stick from the fire and offered it to Will, but he waved it off with shake of his head, indicating that his captor should eat as he worked on the fish in hand.  
  
“No, I don’t know what she looked like.”   
  
He’d asked his father many a time, as any child abandoned by a mother would. His father would never answer him.    
  
“Do you know of a faerie that sings for fish?” Will asks, bold in his hopeful curiosity.  
  
“I know of one that sings for men.”  
  
Will took another bite, brow quirked. “What do you mean?”  
  
“They are beautiful creatures – half woman, half fish – with the most lovely voices you will ever hear.”    
  
Hannibal remembered his own meeting with the creature that had nearly cost him his life.   
  
“They sing to sailors, enchanting men to throw themselves overboard and wreck their ships on rocky shores to reach them.”  What became of the men afterward was pure speculation, but the most popular theory was that the women ate their flesh.  
  
“You’re telling me that my mother is a monster – a demon – and that what I have are her gifts?”    
  
His stomach turned.  The priest, the villagers, they had been right.  
  
“Would your father fuck a demon?”  
  
In one swift movement Will dropped the last of his fish, tightened his fist, and swung.  
  
Hannibal was quick to catch it, twisting the boy’s arm behind him to press him to the ground.    
  
“I think your mother is beautiful and powerful,” he said into the shell of Will’s ear, “and that you should be grateful for the gifts she’s given you.”  
  
Will jerked against his grip, and the warrior raised his arm another uncial, making the boy hiss a breath as his shoulder threatened to pop. Hannibal pressed him harder against the ground, leaning into his ear again.  
  
“The only things evil and demonic in this world are the men who crawl across it.  Your mother is no more evil than any other creature.”  
  
“You called her a demon!” Will gritted out.  
  
“I called her beautiful, you called her a demon. I asked if you thought your father would have given himself to one.  Your father found something beautiful and had a child with her.”  
  
“You said my father fucked a demon.”  
  
“I asked if you believed that your father would have fucked a demon.  Do you think he would he have kept the child from a demon?  Protected and raised that child?”    
  
Will jerked again beneath him.   
  
“No,” Hannibal whispered. ”He kept you because he loved you, and your mother, and saw something worth protecting.”  
  
This time when Will jerked against his grip, Hannibal let go. He rose from his position over the boy’s body, standing  to watch as Will rolled from his belly to sit again.   
  
“Should I accept this as your answer Will?”  
  
He didn’t give Hannibal the satisfaction of seeing him rub his aching shoulder, meeting him in the eyes with a glower instead.    
  
“I didn’t try to escape.”  
  
“You didn’t,” he agreed, “you attacked me.”  
  
“You insulted my mother.”  
  
“You insulted your mother.  I only told you what she is.”  
  
“You can’t know that!” he yelled, snapping again. “You’ve never met her, you have no way of knowing that my mother was a monster!”  
  
“I know that when you hummed for the fish I was as drawn to you as they were, tempted to step into the water and join you. I know that you have magick in your visions – greater than I have ever laid witness to before – and I know that iron hurts you.”  He touched a finger to hilt of his blade.  “It hurts them too.”  
  
Will’s hands fisted at his sides. He slid his thumb against the knuckle of his middle finger, and felt the scar thick and raised against it. It was a cut from his father’s filleting knife that had nearly killed him.  
  
“The villagers were right,” Will swallowed, throat tight as he accepted the truth he’d been so blind to before. “I am a monster.”  
  
“You are a gift.”  
  
Will laughed, bitter and hollow, staring into the dying embers of their fire. He allowed the sight of the hundreds watching their exchange to bore into him.   
  
“If I am a gift, then you can have me.”  
  
“You’ll join us?”  
  
“No. But I’m yours to keep.”    
  
He would never be accepted anywhere else.  
  
OoOoO   
  
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are chewing on fish-kebabs while your comments are munching on old world trail mix watching the fight. 
> 
> HUMAN SACRIFICE 
> 
> I read 4 websites telling me that the bog-men they've been digging up were their failed kings or very important people and not just the miscellaneous sacrifice of family. Also they've said that with the poor record keeping that nothing can be confirmed but is speculated and believed. Please also consider that Hannibal's time with his people was broken apart, he may not be as well informed on his own customs in this aspect as he believes he is. He is not a priest of his people, he is a warrior and if times have been going well since his return than there would be no need for human sacrifice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are poking dead locals with a stick while your comments munch on fish stew demanding updates.
> 
> Léine - Irish tunic  
> Brat - Irish cloke  
> Uncial – Roman equivalent for inch  
> Magick – Chakra, energies, fae, ect.  
> Magic – Smoke and mirrors, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, ect.


End file.
